What Have Past Goliath Champions Been Up To?

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Jul 18, 2018 5 min read

The 2018 GUKPT Goliath takes place at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry between Jul. 28 and Aug. 5 and guarantees that its eventual champion will turn their ��125 investment into at least ��100,000. Whoever wins the 2018 Goliath will earn the biggest prize in the tournament��s history, eclipsing even the ��85,760 won by last year��s champion, Elliott Marais.

Winning a massive score from a tournament can give you the foundations to build a poker career. Have any of the past Goliath champion gone on to win other major tournaments? PokerNews takes a look.

Lee Rawson: 2011 Goliath Champion

Lee Rawson had won a shade under ��6,500 before he outlasted a field of 1,765 in the inaugural Goliath back in 2011 for ��32,705; this is still Rawson��s largest live poker tournament score.

Rawson continues to play low stakes live tournaments with 2015 being his best year, after his Goliath win, where he netted $11,769 according to The Hendon Mob database. His volume has seriously dropped off in recent years with only a single cash in 2017, although he recently cashed in a ��165 buy-in event in July where he finished eighth for ��1,069.

Leslie Fenton: 2012 Goliath Champion

Leslie Fenton banked ��35,800 when he was crowned the 2012 Goliath champion, which is by far his largest live cash to date. Fenton added ��10,220 to his lifetime winnings a few months after winning the Goliath as he finished third in the GUKPT Champion of Champions event.

Fenton went on to cash in both the 2014 and 2016 Goliath tournaments, with his last recorded cash coming on Boxing Day 2017.

Jake Skidmore: 2013 Goliath Champion

Jake Skidmore proved to be a popular champion in 2013 thanks to him hailing from nearby Birmingham. Skidmore walked away with ��29,690 after a four-handed deal. His Hendon Mob page suggest Skidmore continued to play a busy schedule of low buy-in tournaments at his local Grosvenor Casino in Birmingham throughout 2013 and 2014 with his volume petering out in 2016 onwards.

Skidmore managed to win a Grosvenor 25/25 Series event in Birmingham in Jun. 2016 for ��5,580, the second-largest cash of his career.

Ryan Foster: 2014 Goliath Champion

Ryan Foster appears to have hit and run after his win in the 2014 Goliath event. Foster got his hands on ��62,320 in 2014 with his only previous cash before that giant score being for ��635, his reward for winning a ��110 GUKPT event in Jun. 2011.

Foster has three more cashes since his 2014 Goliath victory, including a 74th place finish in the 2016 Goliath Main Event.

Miikka Toikka: 2015 Goliath Champion

Miikka Toikka banked ��70,800 when he won the 2015 Goliath and has since added nine more cashes to his Hendon Mob page, including a $31,842 score for finishing seventh in the $1,100 partypoker WPT National Main Event in May 2016.

Toikka is well-known in the UK poker community and although he does not play as many live poker tournaments as some of his peers, Toikka is still a formidable poker player who is more than capable of making deep runs in any events he chooses to play.

Vamshi Vandanapu: 2016 Goliath Champion

One player who has gone on to use his Goliath victory to fund even more poke tournaments is the 2016 champion Vamshi Vandanapu who secured a ��62,750 prize for his victory.

Vandanapu already has several four-figure scores, plus one worth ��18,000, when he took down the 2016 Goliath. He has since cashed another 32 times in the UK, Ireland, Czech Republic, and the United States, including a �50,000 score for finishing fourth in the 2017 Irish Open Main Event. He clearly loves the game and we would be surprised if he did not show his face at the 2018 Goliath.

Elliott Marais: 2017 Goliath Champion

It has only been 12 months since Elliott Marais won ��85,760 after being crowned the 2017 Goliath champion, the biggest prize awarded in the tournament��s history. Marais has not been busy cashing in events up and down the country, although he has a fourth place and runner-up finish in low stakes tournament, plus a deep run in the 2018 Irish Open Main Event.

Qualify for the 2018 Goliath For Only ��0.25

Satellites are available online at Grosvenor Poker from as little as ��0.25. Will you qualify for this event for pennies and then turn that small investment into ��100,000? If you do, will this massive prize become your new bankroll to propel you into poker��s limelight?

2018 Goliath Schedule

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